This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II (book)

Young adult novel by Andrew Fukuda centering on Alex Maki, a bookish and artistic teenager growing up in a farming family in Bainbridge Island, Washington and his unlikely pen pal relationship with Charlie Lévy, a Jewish teenager growing up in Paris. First assigned to correspond with Charlie as part of a school exercise, Alex is initially disappointed because Charlie was a girl. But they continue to write to each other, and their relationship deepens into a quasi-romantic one as they grow older. World War II sees Alex and his family forcibly removed from their home and sent to Manzanar, while Charlie's family feels growing unease as Nazi occupation approaches. When her letters stop, Alex is moved to volunteer for the army and is eventually sent to Europe as part of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion .

Author Fukuda was born in New York, but grew up Hong Kong. A former New York City prosecutor, he turned to writing for teens, inspired by working with teens in New York Chinatown. His first novel, Crossing (2010) had a Chinese immigrant protagonist; he followed it up with a three book horror fiction series titled The Hunt . The Light Between Us was his fifth novel. In his "Author's Note," Fukuda writes that he was inspired to write the book after learning that Anne Frank had had an American pen pal and that the 522nd had liberated a Dachau subcamp.

A good chunk of the novel takes place in Manzanar and while the general circumstances of life there are accurately portrayed, there are many minor errors. For instance, when Alex and his family arrive at Manzanar, "the first of thousands to arrive at Manzanar," they encounter barbed wire fences and are assigned to Block 16. In actuality, the Bainbridge Island group was preceded by several hundred Japanese Americans from the Los Angeles area, and neither the fence nor Block 16 had been built at that time. A letter about Alex's father's internment comes from Crystal City in July 1942, but the first Japanese Americans to arrive at that camp came in March 1943. Ben Kuroki visits Manzanar as an army recruiter in February 1943; while the war hero did visit three of the War Relocation Authority concentration camps, he did so in April and May of 1944, and Manzanar was not among the camps he visited. There are other similar errors.

Might also like: Within These Lines by Stephanie Morrill (2019); Beneath the Wide Silk Sky by Emily Inouye Huey (2022); Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford (2009)